Do people lose their brains in December???

People are crazy. No, insane really. It seems you can't even go buy a gallon of milk right now without at least fighting the crazy crowds at the store and the traffic to get there.

Anyway... somebody could have killed me tonight on my way to a basketball game. I was on a windy two lane road that the speed limit was 40 mph on and going probably somewhere between 45 and 50. (and it is dark outside) The moron behind me decides I am not going fast enough and pulls out to pass me in a curve and of course speeds up as he comes out to pass. When he goes around the curve he meets a set of headlights that are awful close to him. I'm thinking I'm going to get killed when these two cars collide and one gets thrown into me. The two cars slam on their brakes and are sliding everywhere and I go off the road a bit to get out of the way. Thank God nobody hit anybody and I took off again. The bad thing was the guy behind me turned off that road not long after all this happened. Why are people in such a big hurry???

When Mom and I went to see Mannheim Steamroller we stopped in Cullman to eat at Cracker Barrel. (more about that in a minute) When we left, and were getting ready to turn on the interstate this guy comes up behind me and starts honking his horn at me like there is no tomorrow. The light IS green but I am turning and there are cars coming the other direction that I guess I was supposed to just run into. He kept honking and getting closer and closer to me. Then when the light turned red he honked some more. I must confess there was ONE break in the traffic where I might could have gone but with him carrying on back there I wasn't about to. He could have given an old person a heart attack the way he was honking like that. IDIOT! Pure nonsense!

Our waitress at Cracker Barrel was not all that great and the food wasn't too great either. Mom ordered coffee but they usually will also bring water or ask if you want some but they did neither so she asked for some water and I asked for a straw. So, she comes back and puts a straw in front of me and water in front of Mom. No straw for Mom. Mom just looked at me and I had to laugh. She didn't ask for a straw - only I did! Then I order a bacon cheeseburger and she brings it out and there is no cheese on it. I wasn't paying attention so she left and then we called her back and told her there was no cheese on my bacon cheeseburger and she asked if that was all that was wrong with it. Then she turns around to leave without saying anything else. I said hey, wait a minute. What are you going to do? Are you bringing me a whole new burger or just a piece of cheese or what is your plan? Because I don't want you to just bring me a piece of cheese. I want it melted on there. So, you want me to take your burger and melt some cheese on it she says. I said well, yeah unless you are going to bring me a whole new one or something. She was something else.

Then tonight at the basketball game I went to some guy got kicked out of there! The ref made a bad call and this guy was ugly and mouthing off and so then the ref consulted with another ref that was watching and sitting where they were running the clock. The ref apologized and corrected the bad call - gave the ball back to the right team and the guy is STILL carrying on. I mean, come on. He apologized and reversed his call. So get over it. No harm done. Mr. Hot Head just could not let it be though and carried on and so the ref that was just watching the game told the guy to leave. I thought some people were going to get in a fist fight there for a few minutes. This is at an 8-9 year olds girls basketball game. I feel sorry for the kid whose Dad that was and pray that somehow she doesn't follow in his footsteps. Sad really.

I'm just glad I made it home tonight! (and from Mannheim Steamroller too) It was a good concert and we made it there to our seat with 5 minutes to spare before it started. Mom got to get a cd signed so when we got back to the car all the traffic was cleared out and getting back to the interstate was a piece of cake!

Now I just wish I could stop all this coughing......

Calendar project part 3

I am officially FINISHED with this calendar project. YEAH!!!! My back is killing me. Now I just need to finish the other 2 in time for Christmas.

Calendar project part 2

I now just have one more month to go on this calendar project! YEAH! I'm going to need to get more adhesive tomorrow so I can work on the 2nd calendar and just got a
3rd one so I will be working for awhile on these projects. Still have a few other projects to complete as well.

Calendar project part 1

This is a calendar project that I am working on for Mom for Christmas. I got one for 2009 but never completed it so I am trying hard to finish this time. I will probably try and finish the 2009 calendar when working on my scrapbook for 2009 and put those calendar pages in the scrapbook so at least they will get used for something.

Women of Faith weekend

This past weekend was awesome. Mom and I went to a Women of Faith conference in Greensboro, North Carolina.

When I was packing for the trip, Chance climbed into my suitcase and made himself comfy!



When we got to the hotel in Greensboro, their electricity was off! Someone had cut a line and they were working to get it back up. The lobby had some lights as well as the halls since they were on an emergency generator but the rooms had no power at all and so of course the elevator wasn't working and they had us on the fourth floor. SO.............I decided that we would just go eat first and then come back and hopefully they would have power again. (Mom has a bad hip and it would be very difficult for her to walk up all those stairs)

We programmed a restaurant into the GPS and took off and wound up downtown. We decided that wasn't a good thing after dark and Mom said she couldn't parallel park a strange car in a strange place. SO, we headed back in the direction of the hotel and got off on a food exit along the way. It just so happened that there was a Carrabba's at that exit. YEAH! We ate and went back to the hotel only to discover that their power was STILL out. We were ready for bed by that time. I asked about getting a different room and we found out the lobby was on level 2. They had a room on level 3 and asked if Mom could climb one flight of stairs and they would bring our suitcases up. She said she could so off we went with a flashlight they gave us at the front desk. When we got to our room I realized we would probably need a 2nd flashlight so the guy that brought our suitcases up went and got us another one and brought it to us.

We were in the room for a little bit and the lights came back on. We unpacked and then Mom went to get in the shower and the lights went out again. UGH! Not sure how long they were out. I was asleep when they came back on.

We had to get up early to go to the pre-conference on Friday. Marilyn Meberg, Steven Arterburn, and Sandi Patty did the pre-conference. Sandi's oldest daughter Anna was the emcee for both events!

The main conference was Friday night and Saturday. We saw Patsy Clairmont, Mandisa, Steven Curtis Chapman, Lisa Whelchel, Sheila Walsh, Luci Swindoll, Marilyn Meberg and I think that was it. I will try to post more later on some highlights on some of their talks. They were all awesome.

We did not expect to see Patsy this weekend. Her oldest son Marty is in the hospital in ICU. He was admitted about two weeks ago I think with swine flu and double pneumonia. He is on oxygen and in a medically induced coma. Just in the day or two prior to the weekend he had tested negative for swine flu and was showing slight signs of improvement. So, Patsy flew in and spoke friday night and then flew back out saturday morning to be with Marty. After Patsy's talk on Friday Anna shared about Marty being in the hospital and how serious it was and asked that Sheila Walsh lead us in prayer for Marty and the family. Her porch pals surrounded her and 11,000 women prayed for Marty. Words cannot even describe that experience. Right around that time when he was being prayed for, Marty's fever broke for the first time in two weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How awesome is that? He has continued to show more signs of improvement since then as of the latest update I've seen.

Left Greensboro yesterday. After we got settled at our gate I went to the bathroom and on the way back noticed an owl sitting on top of one of the bridge extension things. He/she stayed there the entire time we were there. I couldn't resist getting a picture.

The rest of the story...

The "pair" of shoes in the previous post are the shoes Mom wore on the balloon ride. One is more worn than the other - you can tell by looking at the labels inside.
One is dirtier than the other.
One looks wider than the other.
One is leather and the other is not.
Mom didn't bring any close toed shoes so she had to borrow some from me. Guess I should not have given her two different pairs of white shoes to choose from since she wound up choosing one of each pair! Don't think anyone noticed though.

Shoes

Notice anything odd about this pair of shoes in the two pictures below??? You may want to double click on the first picture to see them better.









This lovely knot below in my shoe was fashioned lovingly by Lil Loveday! She told me that she did something "really bad". I knew she was messing with my shoe(s) but just thought she had untied one of them. I didn't notice the knot until the next morning when I went to put on my shoes since I never bother to untie them before slipping them off at night.

Birthday Balloon Ride

I went on a hot air balloon ride to celebrate my 40th birthday this year. I invited my Mom and two good friends to go along with me.


Our balloon all laid out and ready to be blown up. I couldn't believe how big the balloon was. We blew the balloon up with a fan! It is 80 feet from the bottom of the basket to the top of the balloon and the whole contraption weighs about 400 lbs!



The balloon all blown up and ready to go. Notice how big it is next to the school. We took off from Westminster Christian Academy on Mt. Zion road.


All in the balloon and ready to go. It wasn't super easy getting in the balloon or out of it either. Mom had the toughest time due to her bad hip but we/she finally figured out how to get her in there and she loved every minute of the experience.


Tommy distracted by something. The other guy in the balloon is Jeff - our pilot.


Check out our shadow. I thought that was too cool and glad I could get a good picture (or several) of it.

We went up to 3100 feet and landed close to someone's back yard in a field with hay bales. Tommy had to jump out and help walk the balloon over to the driveway of the person's house we landed behind which happened to be the neighbor of one of the guys in our chase crew. Mom, Sherry and I got to ride for that. I thought that was cool. I was hoping the balloon would lift the guys off the ground so we could get a picture of Tommy dangling but that didn't happen.

After we landed and helped pack the balloon back up we had "closing ceremonies". We had some water/soda and finger foods while hearing some info about ballooning and the history of it. Then we had a prayer and a toast with champagne (alcohol removed).

We were taken back to our car and told some interesting balloon stories on the way there and then we all went to Cracker Barrel in Madison for lunch. Tommy said we roasted him but he loved every minute of it!

My foot hurts :(

I think it even looks painful. It was itching so I was scratching at the pool on Friday and scratched the skin off. I've done this before but I don't remember my foot looking quite as bad afterwards. It sure does hurt though.




I thought this was a cute picture of the kitties in the window. They both turn 1 within the next month or so. Hard to believe!

David Ring

I went to see David Ring on Sunday morning. I have seen him a few times and his story always gets to me. Anyway, he mentioned that he wanted to live each day as if it were his last and in such a way that when he wakes up in the morning that the angels salute him and the devil is not happy that "trouble" is up. He then asked a question of us. Does the devil even flinch when you wake up? I've never heard it put that way but Wow!

Does the devil even flinch when you wake up?

I'm done.........

at least for now! The rafting addiction is officially over!!!!!!!!!!!




This picture was taken on the upper section of the ocoee on the olympic course and yes, it was as bad as it looks! It was pretty scary. I would return to do the middle section again but most likely wouldn't do the upper part again.

It's official!

I have now lost my mind! I don't even like flip flops but I spent $20 plus tax on these. I don't like pedicures either but I do like the end result and I cannot paint my own nails.

Food for thought

Who I am and what I struggle with are NOT the same thing. - Jennifer Rothschild in Me Myself and Lies.

Fourth of July Fun

Scary (and potentially dangerous???) rides up and down the mountain

Hanging out

Eating


Fireworks


Treasure hunting


"Papa duck and his ducklings"


Storytelling


Card playing


Fishing

One month to live Day 2

In today's chapter of OMTL, they talked about the Someday Syndrome. I think many of us use the someday syndrome. Someday...................I will...............
We think we'll really take time to enjoy life when we have more money or get a better job or get married or have kids or just whatever. If we knew we only had a month to live we would make the most of every single moment we had left.

If you knew life as you knew it would end in just a few short weeks, what would be your biggest regret?

In what areas of life do you suffer from the someday syndrome? Try not to put things off for someday. TODAY is your someday.

One Month to Live Day #1

I'm reading the book "One Month to Live" by Kerry and Chris Shook. I started it a few months ago and got to day 12 I think and then went out of town and never got back to it. So, I am starting again along with a couple of friends.

I think the overall message of the book is to live your life to the fullest and make everyday count. I will turn 40 in August of this year and January of next year marks my 20th year of having diabetes. So, it will not be long before I will have lived more of my life WITH diabetes than without it.

When I look back over my life I realize how often I have let things hold me back in life. I see myself sitting on the sidelines WAY too often. I think I am slowly learning to live a bit more and enjoy life. Too often I have let my shyness, or my weight, or my thinking it wasn't the right time to do/have something (like pets), etc. get in the way of really getting in the game of life and enjoying it.

The first quote in chapter one of the OMTL book is "Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives." - Alan Sachs

From the book - when most people are faced with terminal condtions, they make radical changes as a result of their awareness of their terminal condition. They take license to say what they really feel and do what they really want. They ask for forgiveness and forgive others. They no longer think only of themselves but reach out to those they love and let them know how much they mean. They take risks they never would have taken before and allow themselves to lay worry aside and gratefully accept each new day. They seem to gain a new clarity about their priorities like their relationship with God and leaving legacies that will endure.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to spend your life so that if you discovered you only had a month t live, you wouldn't need to change a thing?

Be brutally honest with yourself. Your time on earth is limited. Shouldn't you start making the most of it? If you knew you had one month to live, you would look at everything from a different perspective. Many of the things you do now that seem so important would immediately become meaningless. You would have total clarity about what matters most, and you wouldn't hesitate to be spontaneous and risk your heart. You wouldn't wait until tomorrow to do what you need to do today. The way you lived that month would be the way you wished you had lived your whole life.

If you knew you had one month to live, your life would be radically transformed. But why do we wait until we're diagnosed with cancer or we lose a loved one to accept this knowledge and allow it to free us? Don't we weant all that life has to offer? Don't we want to fulfill the purpose for which we were created? Wouldn't life be a lot more satisfying if we lived this way?

One of today's challenges it to quickly without thinking about it too much make a list of 5 things you would change about your life if you knew you only had a month to live. Choose one to begin changing today.

Rafting fun

Whitewater rafting is AWESOME! I was kind of sad when it was over. The river was packed that day too so the guide couldn't do as much as he could if it wasn't so packed but we had a lot of fun. I even got out of the raft and into the water when he said we could go in! The water was cool and it felt so wonderful. We are talking about going back to do the full river trip. We had one person go into the water when she wasn't planning to but everyone else stayed in except when they wanted to be out of the raft. There were two opportunities to get out. The first one was in calm water to just swim/float around and the second was at a rapid where you could climb on this big rock and jump into the rapid and it would take you under and spit you back out. The current would carry you a ways down from the raft if you couldn't swim pretty strong to get out of it.

In the pictures Carlos is 'riding the bull' as they call it sitting up front in the raft. There were two opportunities to do that. Maybe one day I will try that???

I'm ready for the next trip! It was a blast!

Who knew????

Who knew marshmellows and duffel bags could be so much fun!

I was eating some marshmellows tonight and I typically let the cats sniff what I am eating as they always act like they are just SO deprived to not eat what I am. Usually they just sniff and walk away but they were a bit more interested in the marshmellows. Chance wasn't quite sure what to do with his but finally decided it was good for eating. Gracie thought hers was good for playing but she must have licked it or something as it kept getting stuck on her foot and she kept trying to sling it off and then when she would get it slung off she would go chase it and bat it and chase it again. She kept stopping to look at Chance eating his like she was wondering why he was eating a perfectly good toy. It was funny to watch them but I didn't get any good pics of that. Didn't think about the camera soon enough. :(


The picture below is Gracie in one of my duffel bags. I did NOT put her in there. She just got in herself and scrambled around awhile trying to get comfy I guess. You couldn't even tell she was in there until she stuck her head out to look around.



The cats sure have changed things around here!

Family

This is my nieces and nephews with their great-grandparents. I thought the picture turned out pretty good. The kids seem to be getting SO big lately. My grandparents have aged a good bit in the last few years - especially gramma.

Ever have days like these???

I LOVE this! It just cracks me up! I remember this going around by email some time back and I just saw it on someone's facebook tonight. Too funny.

Hair, toes & kitties

Look how long/big she is now!



I love this picture of them looking out the front storm door.



My toes! I have never had them blue before.





My new hair do. I have highlights for the first time and a different cut as well. It is sort of hard to tell in pictures but it looks a good bit different to me. I'm thinking with this type cut I may need to try pierced ears again but not sure. They have never really done well pierced. Seem to stay infected most of the time which is no fun at all.

The Graduate

My cousin Stephanie's graduation was this weekend. She was an honor graduate and will be going off to college in the fall with a biology major. She has an interest in marine biology but would likely need to go out of state for that. She is a smart kid and seems to have a good head on her shoulders. I am sure she will do well and the family is proud of her.



This is my little cousin Aiden. (Stephanie's nephew) He is so adorable and such a happy baby. He knows no stranger which is amazing to me. Danielle could not have gotten a better baby.

one day old kitten

This is the little kitten I helped take care of today. It was born yesterday and wasn't moving around very much so the mama cat pushed it aside. Tomkat found it and thought it was dead but then it moved. He tried to get the mama to take it but it would not. So, he took it in the house and tried to feed it himself but it would not eat anything. It would not eat at all yesterday but has been eating today. I'm amazed the little thing is still alive! I think it may be dehydrated though. If it is still alive in the morning maybe I can convince the tomkat to at least go get it some fluids under the skin so it has a better chance at survival. I had to do that with Chance when I first got him and wasn't even charged so surely it wouldn't be too much money???

When Godly People do Ungodly Things

I enjoyed this bible study more than I thought I would and decided to post the five points that were made by Beth Moore in our last video session.

1. The sin that is different from ours always seems worse.
2. The Word of God never teaches us to break fellowship with the repentant.
3. We cannot go on in our sin. The Holy Spirit will convict us.
4. How do we go on from here? We go on blessed.
5. A true, healed Had is so scared of herself that she will never live anywhere but before the face of God.

I've had some conversations recently with various people about whether or not we can lose our salvation. My position is that we cannot. Romans 8:38 says "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I do not believe that God would ever turn His back on us. Yes, we can turn our backs on Him and go off in our sin for awhile but I believe point #3. We cannot go on in our sin. We WILL be convicted by the Holy Spirit and we will turn back. The prodigal son did. The father was waiting and watching for him to return and he was greeted with open arms. The father didn't send him away. He didn't say you've gone too far this time. He greeted the son with open arms.

What would be the point of the cross if He ever intended to turn His back on those whom He has saved??? I'm afraid in our flesh and the sins we commit and continue to commit He would have turned His back on every last one of us by now if that was the case.

God Speaks your Love Language

I bought this book by Gary Chapman not super long ago and really enjoyed it.

Basically, there are five different love languages. They are:
#1 - Words of affirmation
#2 - Quality Time
#3 - Gifts
#4 - Acts of Service
#5 - Physical touch

One thing that I got out of this book was that if I am not feeling loved by someone it is because they are not speaking my primary love language. It isn't that there is something wrong with me for not "getting" it, it is simply that they are speaking another language and it is one that doesn't communicate love to me in the same way that my primary love language does.
I took this whole concept a little further to realize that if I have someone in my life that does love me but I'm just not getting it then I probably am not very effective in communicating my love for them either since we are obviously speaking different languages based on my own "I'm not feeling the love type feelings".
Because God speaks my love language and your love language, He speaks all five love languages. If we are created in His image and we're to become more and more like Him and we are to love one another then it makes sense that we need to learn to speak all five love languages as well.
From the book "Scripture is clear that making the God connection is not a culmination, but rather a beginning. It also becomes clear that this love relationship with God involves an ongoing association with other members of the family. So as we learn to receive the love of God in all five love languages, we also begin to speak those languages to other believers as well as those not yet in God's family. Expressing love using your primary love language will come naturally for you. Learning to speak the other four love languages may require more time and effort. However, we must remember that we don't generate the love, but simply channel the love that God provides. We do not love others in order to be accepted by God; we love them in response to God's first loving us and graciously accepting us into His family. Learning to communicate love in all five love languages enhances our usefulness in the community of God. When love prevails in the Christian community, the non-Christian world will beat a path to our doors, for they desperately long for such love. Again, hear the words of Jesus: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another". Love is the distinguishing mark of the Christian. When God's love flows through us in all five love languages, we become surprisingly effective instruments in helping others make the God connection and enter His family. Despite any other challenges or obstacles we may face, love prevails!"
I think this is where we miss the boat so often as Christians. We don't love one another. We judge. We condemn. We shoot our wounded. We turn our backs on those we once claimed to care about because we don't understand or we don't agree or we get scared or just whatever. We as Christians are the church and the church should be a safe place where we can be real. But, so often it isn't and that is sad. And we wonder why the non-Christian world isn't beating a path to our door.

Morning after the sleep study

It looks like I had a rough night! Look at how red the side of my nose is from the mask. Talk about sore. The red marks on my forehead are where they wrote on me with a washable marker. They wrote all in my head too.

Frankenstein

I looked pitiful all hooked up for my 2nd sleep study with the cpap machine. I had to wear those two "belts" around me all night and I had four probes connected to each leg as well with the wires going up each pant leg and up my shirt to be gathered with the rest of the wires behind me. I just wore the box with all the wires connected to it around my neck so I could go to the bathroom once more before being hooked up to the machine and going to bed. It took FOREVER to fall asleep (even though I had taken an ambien as well as the "good" cough medicine) and morning came way too soon but I was more than ready to potty and get unhooked.
They want you to wait to take the sleep aid until you are all hooked up but for me I do better to take it an hour or so before I want to go to sleep but I minded and did what they said. They say they have literally had people fall asleep while hooking them up when they have taken the sleep aid too early for them I guess. I can't see me doing that but one never knows.